Watch Kevin Bacon Hilariously Explain the '80s to Millennials
Kevin Bacon is using his celebrity for a very important cause: making sure millennials don't forget the '80s.
"Awareness of '80s culture and technology has been in significant decline," he notes as "80s Awareness" flashes on the screen in an appropriately pixilated font.
He takes the matter with grave seriousness. If no one is going to step up and do something to stem this tide of forgetfulness, Bacon is left with no choice but to fight it himself. So here he is, clad in his best hero outfit — black leather jacket and aviators — to remind us all of the decade he partially defined with films like Footloose and, of course, The Demon Murder Case.
Bacon seems to attribute the downfall of civilization ('80s amnesia) to millennials' (supposedly) short attention spans and (scary) affinity for technology. But he offers a winking, refreshingly amusing perspective on our modern ails.
"You think Russia's a threat now?" he asks. In the '80s, "you couldn’t even skateboard to Blockbuster without getting nuked." Of course, Bacon is well aware you can't skateboard to Blockbuster now, either.
He has a bracing perspective on modern love, too. "There was no OkTwinder" to help you out in the '80s. Bacon had to look through a phone book and call someone's actual house on a landline. After clearing this first hurdle, he had to talk to a girl's mom for 20 minutes. Finally, after all that, he would get rejected. He couldn't "just swipe away the hurt."
Things took effort back then. Presumably his walk to school (or the set of Footloose) — and Sbarro's, where he took his dates — were also uphill both ways. More pressingly, someone should patent OkTwinder right now.
The skit is consistently funny, but Bacon waits until the end to deliver the funniest and most tragic line of all: "You people will never know the comfort of parachute pants!"
But Bacon doesn't have to worry. He knows his demographic: an audience eager for viral videos of '80s stars talking about the '80s. So he knows the truth: They'll come back into style.
